A Few Hours
by YouCan'tControlMe
Summary: For Seven Days Of Victorious Prompts (7DOVP). He said that he'd be back in no time, that she wouldn't even notice he was gone. He didn't come back. Bade romance (well, angst), with Catorade friendship. Clichéd, but... Whatever.


**A/N: For Seven Days Of Victorious Prompts, organised by x-clownsdontbounce-x and, um, me :) **

**Go write one, or two, or all, if you can XD**

* * *

><p>"You're an idiot."<p>

"I need to do this."

"No, you don't."

"Jade, come on."

"No, Beck. You don't need to do this."

"Please, Jade, just hear me out, ple-"

Their apartment door slammed shut and he later heard their car pull out of the driveway and speed down the road.

He sighed and folded himself into a chair, his posture matching his mental state.

He pulled out a worn photo from his pocket, unfolded it, and lovingly stroked the face on it.

A single tear rolled down his cheek.

* * *

><p>Cutlery angrily attacked the food on a plate on one side of the table, whereas the other side was silent, the meal untouched.<p>

"Jade, we need to talk."

"Well ain't that a wonderful sentence to start with?"

"Come on, you know what this is about."

"I do. And I don't like it."

"If you would just please stop rushing around the place for one second and listen to what I have to say, we could talk about this like adults. Please, Jade."

"I have things to do. I don't want to talk."

And with that, she stormed out of the kitchen and upstairs into their bedroom, slamming every door she came across.

She sat down on her bed and placed her head in her hands, the first tears beginning to fall. She picked up one of his plaid shirts that she used to sleep in and breathed in the scent... His cologne was so comforting. Would it fade over time, she wondered? Would it waste away without anything replenishing it?

The shirt became damp with her tears as she freely cried into it.

She didn't look up as the door swung open - it could only be one person. She didn't bother trying to hide her sobs as she felt his weight on the bed, finally looking up into his sorrowful brown eyes. He gingerly took her into his arms as if she would break any moment, and let her rest her head on his shoulder, calming her down by rhythmically stroking her dark locks.

"Please don't go, Beck."

"Jade, you know I have to."

"Please, I'll do anything. I promise, I'll change, I'll do anything if you'll just stay." She sobbed out, grasping as his shirt and gazing desperately into his chocolate orbs.

"No, Jade, baby, don't change. When I come back I want you to be the same amazing, beautiful, perfect girl I put this ring on, okay?" Beck said, gently covering her left hand and running his fingers over the simple yet beautiful engagement ring,

"Then why? Why are you leaving me?" She said, her face streaked with makeup. She still looked beautiful to him, though.

"Because she shouldn't be dead, baby. She was on a school trip. The rebels weren't even close to where she was staying, and then the next week the airport was closed and they had surrounded the town."

"Beck, that's not you-"

"There weren't enough people there, Jade. They didn't have enough troops. If there were more ready, then she might have been able to get out of there alive."

"Babe, what happened to Anna was not your fault, okay? It was a terrible, terrible thing, but you couldn't have helped it. I know she was your sister, but it wasn't your fault."

"Jade, I know. I know it wasn't my fault. But maybe I can save someone else's Anna, maybe someone else's daughter is on a school trip and that happens. Maybe I can be the one to save her."

"You don't need to go, Beck, please. For me, Beck. Come on." She cupped his cheeks with her hands.

"I love you, Jade. I love you with all my heart. But I need to do this." He shook his head softly and placed his hands above her own.

"What about Cadence, huh? Are you just going to leave before you can even see her? I know my show is wrapping in a bit but I'll still have writing to do - I can't do all this on my own. You can't abandon me."

"You know I'll be back by then, Jade. My decision has been made, baby." She burst out into a new set of tears and they both got ready for bed, the occasional sniffle or whimper coming from the devastated songstress.

They got into bed and, by habit, ended up snuggled into each other.

"You know I'll always love you, right?" He whispered into her ear and she tightened her grip around his torso.

"Yeah. I'll always love you too, babe." She whispered in response.

"Forever."

"Forever and always, Beck."

* * *

><p>There were paparazzi everywhere as they climbed out of their large black car and wheeled his suitcase into the airport.<p>

"Miss West! Where are you two going?"

"Aren't you filming any more?"

"It's Mr Oliver!"

"Mr Oliver, where are you and your fiancé going?"

"How is the baby?"

"Beck! Jade! Over here, over here!"

"Are you still writing, Jade?"

"Any chance your actor fiancé will star in anything you write?"

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"There's only one suitcase!"

"Jade! Where are you going without Beck?"

"Is your fiancé sad about you going?"

"Are you going to cope without him?

"How will the pregnancy be without Beck, Jade?"

They somehow managed to worm themselves out of the crowd without losing each other, both of them ignoring the questions.

He had to fly to another base in America before jetting off again, so he wasn't in uniform and didn't tip the paps off. Jade's bodyguard left them alone together to say goodbye, the strangely calm airport quiet as she turned to him with clouded eyes.

"Please, Beck, I don't want you to go."

"Jade, I know you th-"

"Beck, please, you can't leave me here. What if you don't come back?"

"I will, Jade, list-"

"But what if you don't? What then? What will I do?"

"Baby, I promise you that won't happen, please calm down."

"I can't live without you, Beck. I swear if you die or go missing or whatever, I'll die too. I swear, Beck." By this point, she was sobbing and gasping for air.

"Jade! Listen to me!" She tearfully looked up but tightened her hold on his jacket collar. "I will be perfectly fine. I will go and come back. You'll see me again. I promise, baby, it'll feel like it was only a few hours."

"But what if-"

"No. There are no 'what if's', Jade."

She nodded, his heart breaking for what felt like the hundredth time in the past few minutes at how her pale grey-blue eyes bore into his own. He heard the announcement for his plane, and began to detach himself from her.

"Beck, don't go, please don't go." She was acting so unlike herself. Beck was astounded. He didn't even know she had a side like this - a vulnerable one, sure, but he never knew there was one quite this panicky.

"Jade, I have to." He glanced at the clock. "I'm already late."

She took a deep, shuddery breath in, not trusting herself to open her mouth and say anything but 'don't go'.

"I love you, Jade. So much. I love you with all my heart."

"I- I love you too, Beck. I'll miss you, babe."

"I'll miss you too. I love you. Forever."

"Forever and always, baby."

She kissed him long and hard, and eventually let go of his hand and watched him. She stayed in the airport until she was sure his plane had taken off, and then she allowed herself to be escorted outside.

"Jade! Where's Beck?"

"Miss West! Where's your fiancé?"

"Why has Beck left?"

She ignored the paparazzi and just climbed inside her car.

* * *

><p>"Shh, shh, Jade, it's okay. It's okay. He'll be back."<p>

"I just miss him so much, Tori." Jade sobbed into Tori's shoulder, the comfort and sympathy a welcome change to the emptiness of her house. It had seemed well lived in before he left, but now it just seemed cold, the rooms lifeless, the stylish decor dull.

"I know you miss him, Jade. It's okay, though. He'll be back soon, won't he?" Tori tried to soothe the sobbing songstress with her calming words, revelling in her success when she heard the hiccups become less frequent.

"Jadey, don't be sad. Come on, we can have a girls' night now we're all here. We haven't hung out like this in ages! It'll keep your mind of it, too." Cat piped up from her otherwise silent spot on the sofa next to the two other girls. She didn't quite know how to deal with the situation, so kept quiet.

"Cat's right. We'll have a nice, relaxing, calming night and wake up tomorrow feeling awesome. We all need it, right?" Tori agreed with the excitable now-brunette, as Cat had let her hair grow out after college.

Jade also nodded, her eyelids heavy from exhaustion and tears. The past months had really taken their toll on her - she had to eat and rest properly for the baby, but it didn't stop her from worrying 24/7 about her fiancé.

"I guess. Yeah, at a good idea, Cat. Thank you. It's just... I don't think you understand. It's like... The place where my heart probably should be hurts so badly. I think about him for one second and it sends this unbearable pain through my chest. I just miss him so much... A few hours, my ass."

The other two girls looked at each other and then at Jade, not sure what to say. The raven-haired girl looked so troubled- so in pain. Tori almost thought it was the baby giving her problems, until she saw Jade bring up a hand and claw desperately at her chest.

"I didn't think it could hurt, guys. I didn't actually think there would be physical pain."

Tori and Cat exchanged a sad, pitying look, and Cat stood up without a word.

She walked over to the TV and put something in as Jade and Tori looked up.

"Cat, the last time you put something into my TV it bl-" Jade started.

"I know what it did! I didn't know you weren't meant to put that in the little DVD hole!"

"What happened?" Tori asked cautiously, regretting the question almost instantly.

"Well, Cat thought that putting a-"

"We don't speak of it! I made one mistake and you pester me about it for the rest of forever!"

"That mistake cost me six thousand dollars!"

"Six thousand? Really, Jade?" Tori butted in.

"What? Beck likes 3D."

"Just Beck?"

"Fine. Maybe I do. A bit."

"Whatever!" Cat exclaimed as she plopped down on the sofa, hugging a remote to her chest. She immediately snuggled into Jade, one hand lightly resting on her bump.

"Cat, are you actually going to tell us what we're doing?" Tori asked.

"We're watching The Little Mermaid!" Cat squealed, looking at Jade for confirmation. Neither girls missed the bright smile that slowly crept onto her face

"Why?"

"Because Under The Sea is Jadey's favourite song!"

"Shut up and watch the movie."

* * *

><p>Only Tori and Cat were there for the birth.<p>

She was devastated. Childbirth was painful, but not as painful as knowing her fiancé wouldn't be there to see her beautiful little girl's eyes open for the first time.

Cadence Caterina Victoria Oliver.

She hated clichés, but when two friends help you out as much as Cat and Tori did, it was practically compulsory.

The journalists were delighted with her - and the gossip she brought.

"Miss West! Where's Beck?"

"He never returned, did he?"

"Have you two called it off?"

"Who will get custody of the child?"

"She's still wearing her engagement ring!'

"Why has your fiancé been gone so long?"

"Is he coming back?"

"Where is Mr Oliver?"

"It's her daughter!"

"Can we get a picture?

"Miss West, if you would look this way-"

"We heard the girl's name is Cadence!"

"Is that true, Miss West?"

"Is it Mr Oliver's child, Miss West?"

"Jade! Is the baby Beck-"

"Excuse me! I think we've heard enough from all of you." Tori spoke up, her powerful voice rising above the crowds somehow. "This woman has just come out of hospital after giving birth to a currently startled child - thanks to your barbaric yelling - and while she is quite possibly the strongest woman I think I know, she does not need you here interfering in her personal life! Now would you all please move out of the way so we can get to her car?"

The swarm of paparazzi fell oddly and unusually silent - and parted for the trio. After getting situated in the car - Cat still holding onto Jade's arm tightly, still shocked from the ordeal - Jade turned to Tori.

"Thank you, Tori. What you did was amazing."

"It was nothing." There was a pregnant pause. "Do they always ask you questions as... Personal, and prying as that?"

Jade heaved in a sigh and nodded slowly.

"But they were so rude, Jadey!"

"I know, Cat. I know. It'll blow over. I hope they didn't get too many pictures of Cadence..." She looked to the car seat and gently put a hand over her baby's sleeping body. "She doesn't deserve that. She never will."

The rest of the car journey was silent.

* * *

><p>It was four days after Christmas.<p>

December 29th.

Four days after her happy, lovely, adorable baby girl's first ever Christmas.

He was gone.

Cat and Tori were there at the time - thankfully. She thinks she might have forgotten how to function if they weren't.

The two other girls were happily playing with the baby while she was looking at the stack of mail that had built up over the past few days, resting against the countertop. Everyday things become not-so-every day things with a slightly mischievous three month old.

She didn't want to see that crest.

She thinks back now, and wonders: if she hadn't read that particular envelope, would it not be real?

The letter fell from her hands and she couldn't breathe. Her lungs, her heart, her brain - they weren't working. She wasn't working.

The next thing Tori and Cat heard was a thud.

They rushed over, only to be greeted with a heart-wrenching scream.

Jade simply opened her mouth and wailed.

He was gone.

It might have been for the greater good - only four soldiers died whilst holding off an entire rebel attack - but she wished it wasn't.

She wished it had never happened.

The baby started crying as well, so Cat scurried to get her. After trying and failing to calm Cadence down, she brought her to her mother and just let her lay in Jade's arms.

The two eventually cried themselves to sleep.

Car and Tori thought their hearts broke a little more.

* * *

><p>"Hush, my babe, my little one,<p>

Thy father sails the deep.

But warm thy bed is pretty one,

Lie still my dear, and sleep."

She gazed down at her beautiful daughters sleeping form, slowly backing out of the room and into her own.

She collapsed on the bed, exhausted after a day of chasing Cadence - or Cay, as she was affectionately nicknamed - around the house. She never thought taking care of a child would be this difficult.

Well, she knew it was going to be difficult.

She just thought that she'd have another person to help her.

Sure, Tori and Cat were there for almost everything, but...

It wasn't the same, and they all knew it.

Jade's role on the award winning TV show 'Old Minds, Young Bodies' had been cut especially for her pregnancy, but they would write her back in at the drop of a hat. After she left, she focused on writing her own series - 'Fallen Sparrows' - the pilot of which had already been bought. She was writing a movie, too - a psychological-horror-thriller combo. She was proud of it. She knew it would sell.

She was busy.

Not busy enough.

She would cry herself to sleep every night without fail.

It was pathetic, but she couldn't help it.

She couldn't be not-busy for too long, or her thoughts would drift to- to him, and then her heart would split into a million jagged pieced all over again. She felt like an animal was tearing at her chest, not stopping until it shred her heart into something more unfixable every time.

Sometimes, she would play the piano. Cay didn't mind it, if anything, it helped her sleep. She really was Jade's child.

Jade would write music - beautiful, heart-wrenching melodies with lyrics that brought tears to anyone's eyes - but never sold or recorded any with the hundred record companies that were begging for her to sign with them.

They were too personal. She couldn't have the world knowing all that.

She thinks she would have broken the world if they even felt half of what she was feeling.

Sometimes it just got too much, though.

He was never coming back.

* * *

><p>She woke up, startled. What was that- that horrible sound?<p>

It sounded like... Crying...?

Her mom didn't cry.

She padded over to her Mommy's bedroom, and quietly opened the door.

What she saw broke her young, inexperienced heart.

She was curled up on her bed, clutching Daddy's shirt to her chest tightly.

She knew it was Daddy's shirt because she had seen pictures of him wearing it.

She walked up and crawled on the stage, her mother not even noticing the mattress shift. Jade finally looked up when she felt Cay's hand on her shoulder.

"Cay? What are you doing up?"

"You woke me, mommy. It's okay, I'd rather be with you."

"My baby, I love you."

"Is it today, mommy?"

There was a pause whilst Jade sat up and pulled her daughter onto her lap.

"Yes, Cadence. Eight years."

"Do you still love daddy?"

"So much, baby girl. So much. It's okay, though. You make it all better." She said, giving her daughter a watery smile.

Cadence knew her mother was lying. How would aunt Tori and Cat deal with it?

Oh!

She climbed out of her mother's lap and under the duvet, calling for her mother to join her. She snuggled into her embrace, and tangled her hands in her black tresses. Taking a deep, steady breath, and only having her mother's happiness on her brain, the selfless little girl began to sing:

"Hush, my dear, my little one,

Thy husband sails the deep.

But warm thy bed is pretty one,

Lie still my dear, and sleep."

She trailed off, falling asleep whilst her mother lay there, stroking the young girl's dark locks.

Maybe it was going to be okay.


End file.
